AT LAST NIGHT’S presidential debate, Obama mentioned Planned Parenthood, which really should be called Planned Non-Parenthood or Eugenics Anonymous, no less than five times and spoke glowingly of the need for every woman to have contraceptives for free. Can you imagine George Washington or Eisenhower speaking of the need to widely distribute chemicals to prevent pregnancy and facilitate promiscuity? We have gone in less than a hundred years from a nation that outlaws contraceptives to one in which presidents promise to make sure synthetic hormones are handed out like candy. Romney said emphatically that every woman in America should have “access to contraceptives.” He openly supports the chemical sterilization of women.

I wish someone who is not alive today — and who will never be alive because of the policies and cultural values promoted by both of our presidential contenders — could have spoken up at last night’s debate. Here is what he might have said:

“Mr. Romney and President Obama, I have a question for you both.

May I ask what you have against me? I know I’m not — or I should say, would not be — a perfect person, and I realize I would require an investment in my early years, but the truth is, I would also work and pay taxes and buy many goods, which are all things you value highly. I think I would make a contribution economically. I would even be willing to make a pledge right here and now to be as little trouble as possible. Why then am I the silent enemy?

I’m wondering if you could explain more specifically why you prefer that I not exist.”

—– Comments —–

Jane S. writes:

I keep saying this over and over, but extermination of the human race is liberalism’s goal, always has been, always will be. Not only Planned Parenthood, but the United Nations, NGOs across the globe and other members of Satan’s Legion are working to achieve this goal.

It will continue this way until politicians and societal leaders, and those who follow them, learn to obey God.

Quoting Henri de Lubac, one of 20th-century Catholicism’s most distinguished theologians: “It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God. What is true is that, without God, he can only organize it against man.”

Laura writes:

Perhaps “extermination” is too strong of a word. Let’s say, selective reduction of the human race to the few who are “planned.”

Jane writes:

Liberals don’t want themselves to be exterminated, of course. They would like a world made up of elite chatterboxes and their servants, and no one else. They don’t understand that once the juggernaut of liberalism gets rolling, it drags everyone underneath. Liberals are, like Orwell said, people who play with fire without realizing that fire is hot.

—– Comments —-

SJF writes:

I too turned off the debate in disgust at Romney’s failure to challenge BHO on many issues, but especially Planned Parenthood. What would have happened if Romney had said something like this:

“The President says that I want to eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood. He’s right. Does the President know the origins of Planned Parenthood? Does he know the views of its founder Margaret Sanger? Well, in case he doesn’t, I’ll tell him. The express purpose of Planned Parenthood was to drastically decrease the numbers of people that look exactly like the President – black people! And given the fact that the vast majority of abortions today kill minority – mostly black – babies, Planned Parenthood is succeeding beyond the wildest imagination of Ms. Sanger. Do I want to cut off funding for an organization that kills black babies, and that has a racist origins? You bet I do. The question is why the President, a black man, does not.”

If Romney is so pro-life, why the h.e. double hockey sticks didn’t he jump on this softball and knock it out of the park?!

Jesse Powell writes:

Regarding fertility, it should be kept in mind that “individual choice,” in practice the woman’s choice, is inherently degenerative. An individual feminist woman may chose to have multiple children if she is outside of the norm but if the feminist culture persists within a family line the woman’s children will have fewer children than she did and the woman’s grandchildren will have fewer children still. After not too many generations fertility within the feminist family line will collapse and the feminist branch of the family line will cease to continue. Society as a whole will not disappear because along the feminist path to extinction many individuals will see that they are on a sinking ship and will jump off before they drown. This “jumping off the sinking ship” expresses itself as the conversion from feminism to patriarchy or alternatively the conversion from atheism to Christianity. The survivors then form the seed from which a new healthy society is reborn while those who refuse to leave the sinking ship of feminism simply drown.

“Individual choice” regarding fertility may exist in theory but in practice each woman exists within a community and needs support from others (particularly men) to be able to succeed in her family life. The very idea of “individual choice” destroys the community within which the “individual choices” are made. As the support for women inevitably disappears as it must where “individual choice” is the order of the day women will progressively be forced to make the only choice the society around them will support; that “choice” being childlessness. After all children require sacrifice and work and commitment; all things that are inimical to “choice.”

The only parts of society that will support women’s natural desire for children over the long term are those parts of society that convert to patriarchy and are based in Christianity as the ethic of Christian patriarchy is totally different from the ideology of “choice.” In the “individual choice” ideology children are necessarily bad and undesirable as they impinge on “choice”; in the Christian patriarchy ideology children and new life are blessings and part of God’s plan. This difference in orientation makes all the difference. It is why Christian patriarchy will succeed and atheist feminism will fail.

Andrew writes:

As Supreme Commander in W.W. II President Eisenhower oversaw the distribution of millions of condoms to 14 million American servicemen. When those failed, his Navy corpsmen and Army medics were responsible for cleansing the men of various forms of VD to maintain a functional fighting force.

These men returned home from this government promoted sexcapade and created the modern American culture of Playboy, Divorce, and Free Love.

Recently, you were dismissive of the concept of Naval Seamen and women remaining out of each other’s beds on ship. If you cannot expect young people to avoid sex with random co-workers on a ship, why do you expect fidelity before and during marriage? Yet the vast majority of people do not divorce, do not cheat, and do not sleep around.

Laura writes:

Distributing condoms to sailors, however wrong that may be, is very different from presidents openly talking before a national audience about providing “access to contraceptives” to every woman in America.

I wasn’t dismissive of the concept of Naval sailors staying out of each other’s beds based on conjecture, but on the reality of what is happening on coed ships.

I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you saying promiscuity is not a problem? I disagree. Many more people divorce, cheat and sleep around than they did in the past and these things are not shameful. The point here, however, is that the notion that the federal government should provide access to contraceptives is radical, destructive and extremely immoral.

Andrew writes;

My question is this. If we believe that abstinence before marriage and fidelity during it are not mere platitudes but attainable goals, then why should we be concerned about men and women together on a ship in the Navy? Shouldn’t they be expected to keep their hands off each other? That contraceptives are needed in abundance tells you only about the lack of character of some of those in the service.

I do not agree that many more people are doing these things today, than in the past. Human nature has not changed suddenly in the past 100 years, just modes of human behavior. In the past, it was much more common for many men to frequent prostitutes instead of trolling for women in bars. When people wanted fewer children, they practiced Onanism, which was widespread enough to have a very noticable effect on the birthrate of whole social groups in the U.S. and even entire countires like France. Divorce only seems common today because of its particular prevelance in the so-called Bible Belt among so-called Christians, where rates of those ever divorced are well over 40 percent. In the north and west it is still relatively uncommon and unaccepted. In the past, divorce was lower because the lower social classes often did not even bother to marry. You can’t divorce if you are just living in a common law marriage.

A conservative counter revolution is not going to occur from attempting to pass laws against contraceptive access, or suing on this topic in court given the overwhelming practical opposition to any restrictions on the availability of contraceptives. This very approach was already tried by Anthony Comstock and obviously failed in short order, and it has been nothing short of disastrous in doing anything positive to combat abortion.

Catholic institutions that want to avoid the contraceptive mandate need to look in the mirror and decide if they actually want to be Catholic institutions that proselytize and serve Catholics and are operated only by and for Catholics, or if they want to continue as mere conduits for government largesse and continue to set out an “all are welcome” sign on the front door that buries Catholic identity beneath a scramble for non-Catholic students, patients, employees, and customers. Following the example of the Amish, and seperating from the world and thus from the government and its money, is the only way to freedom.

Laura writes:

You write:

My question is this. If we believe that abstinence before marriage and fidelity during it are not mere platitudes but attainable goals, then why should we be concerned about men and women together on a ship in the Navy? Shouldn’t they be expected to keep their hands off each other? That contraceptives are needed in abundance tells you only about the lack of character of some of those in the service.

The main concern expressed by Capt. Kevin Eyer was the effect of integration on the Navy as a military operation, and that was my concern too. Obviously if a ship has as much intrigue as a college dorm it is not a very effective fighting force. Sailors already are expected to keep their hands off each other. But that is not an entirely realistic goal when young men and women are living in close quarters for long periods of time. Nevertheless, even if they were as chaste as monks, the current goal of equality in the military would still be wrong.

You write:

Divorce only seems common today because of its particular prevelance in the so-called Bible Belt among so-called Christians, where rates of those ever divorced are well over 40 percent. In the north and west it is still relatively uncommon and unaccepted. In the past, divorce was lower because the lower social classes often did not even bother to marry. You can’t divorce if you are just living in a common law marriage.

The divorce revolution of the 1970s was pervasive throughout the United States and affected all classes. It’s not true that divorce simply increased during that period because more people were marrying. Divorce, which has declined somewhat in the upper classes, is still very common and accepted in the northeast and the West Coast, and in American popular culture. I will include links here tomorrow from former posts with statistics on this subject.

I’d be curious to know what evidence you have that in the first half of the twentieth century in America, when Census figures show low rates of illegitimacy, that there were many common law marriages among the lower classes.

Human nature doesn’t change but mores do.

You write:

A conservative counter revolution is not going to occur from attempting to pass laws against contraceptive access, or suing on this topic in court given the overwhelming practical opposition to any restrictions on the availability of contraceptives. This very approach was already tried by Anthony Comstock and obviously failed in short order, and it has been nothing short of disastrous in doing anything positive to combat abortion.

Outlawing contraceptives is not something I have ever discussed here or proposed. My point above was to note the stark contrast in attitudes toward contraceptives.

Following the example of the Amish, and seperating from the world and thus from the government and its money, is the only way to freedom.

Yes, but there is value in a public conversation about the consequences of widespread contraceptive use.

Laura writes:

Andrew is essentially arguing that the sexual revolution never happened, that because men possibly visited prostitutes at a higher rate in the past, the phenomenon that people have observed and commented upon for the past 50 years is really just a figment of the imagination. The same amount of sexual lawlessness occurred in the past.

Prostitution, however, was illegal and was frowned upon. And while many men visited prostitutes this did not for most provide regular sexual activity. Now, legal sex outside marriage is much more easily procured and it is not frowned upon. Most women who are not prostitutes have multiple sexual partners throughout their lives. When my mother attended college, the president of the college inspected the dresses of girls before a dance and vetoed those that were immodest. Now Catholic colleges are sexual free-for-alls and the administration looks the other way. The fact that prostitutes may have been busier then does not mean that standards of sexual restraint have not lessened.

Jesse Powell writes:

Andrew has made a lot of assertions here; they seem to center around the idea that things were “just as bad” in the past regarding disorderly behavior as they are today. In other words, “misbehaving” is a part of human nature not alterable by cultural factors or even laws and that it remains constant in a society over time regardless.

This general idea is not true; disorderly behavior and in particular behavior seriously harmful to family life was much less common 100 years ago than today. I can assert this because negative outcomes related to family life were much less common 100 years ago than today. Statistics have been kept on a number of different family indicators for the past 100 years and further back; it is not “a mystery” whether things have gotten worse, stayed the same, or gotten better. Very, very clearly across all indicators, things have gotten steadily and much worse over the past 100 years. People have actually kept track of indicators related to the family precisely because it was important for people to know what was going on. For a quick rundown; the divorce rate in 1870 was 3.3 percent, now it is 50 percent; the out-of-wedlock birth ratio among whites was one percent in 1920, now it is 29 percent; the proportion of white married women in the workforce was 2.2 percent in 1890, now it is 60 percent. By no stretch of the imagination do these numbers indicate “stability” or that things were “just as bad” 100 years ago as they are today.

To address some specific points, Andrew said, “In the past, divorce was lower because the lower social classes often did not even bother to marry. You can’t divorce if you are just living in a common law marriage.” First of all the “divorce rate” usually refers to the number of divorces divided by the number of marriages giving an approximate “probability of divorce” over a lifetime under the assumption of getting married. In this most common definition of the “divorce rate” people who never get married are not counted at all so no distortion is caused by those who never marry. Secondly, it is not true that in the past in America the “lower social classes” often didn’t marry. It is precisely the modern era over the past few decades where one sees the lower classes not participating in family lfie; in the past the family behaviors of the lower classes were much closer to the family behaviors of the upper classes than today. Class division regarding family behaviors is a modern phenomenon derivative of overall family breakdown that affects the lower classes the most severely; it is not “traditional” or what was typical in “the past.”

Andrew said, “A conservative counter revolution is not going to occur from attempting to pass laws against contraceptive access . . .” Maybe so and maybe not. Different people have different ideas of how best to pursue the hoped for “conservative counter revolution.” My personal favorite is a grass roots bottom up Christian revival. Regardless, it is worth talking about the harmful effects of “the contraceptive mentality” if for no other reason than because nobody else is talking about it.

Regarding Andrew’s comments about Catholic institutions, I suppose the idea is that if Catholic institutions serve the public at large and receive public money to do so then they have no right to “impose Catholic values” on those they serve. If the government told the Catholic institution, “If you want to receive government money you will provide contraceptive coverage to all your employees” then I can see that the Catholic institution should decide whether to accept government money under those conditions or not. If the government simply said to the Catholic institution “you must offer all your employees contraceptive coverage if you are going to provide services to non-Catholics” then I would say that is a violation of the separation between Church and state as that is the government dictating to the Catholic institution how to behave as a Catholic institution. A free society would allow religious institutions to act according to their conscience without forcing them into extreme isolation like the Amish.

Mary writes:

Andrew wrote: “These men returned home from this government promoted sexcapade and created the modern American culture of Playboy, Divorce, and Free Love.”

Andrew may be on to something here in mentioning Playboy. If I’m not mistaken, Playboy, started in 1953, was the first form of pornography for the masses, blended as it was with engaging, serious writing to give it a sheen of legitimacy and make it appeal to the middle class; they needn’t be ashamed of reading something they really only read “for the articles”. Playboy aggressively escalated the lazy moral thinking begun by Hollywood in the creation of movies in which by the 50’s one could already see the blurring of distinctions in terms of sexual mores, race, etc.

Even if looking back to 1953 Playboy looks tame by comparison to today’s pornography, I don’t think it’s impact can be overstated; it began the downward slide, weakening men and softening the patriarchy in general just in time for the onset of feminism. Indeed, perhaps the playboy and the feminist can’t be separated. Playboy was Eve – it was the apple – and American men made Adam’s mistake.

Of course Playboy didn’t single-handedly lower the authority of the American male, just as the Pill and abortion didn’t act alone to change the face of the Amercian family. But it seems to me that these three things – oral contraception, abortion and pornography – have acted in concert; these things that formerly dwelled under the surface, in the dark, that were considered beneath the standards of healthy living, when suddenly brought to the surface and into the light were energized; they gained a momentum that is exclusive only to sin legitimized. That these sins receive defense beyond all logic and reason speaks to our fallen nature more than anything else. Which is not to say that we are exempt from working to correct these sins.